Strategic Management of Information and Communication Technology The United States Air Force Experience with Y2K (2007) / Chapter Skim
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1 Background
1 Background
Pages 13-36
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From page 13... ...
These areas provide the context for the lessons presented in Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5: "Managing ICT Complexity," "Aligning Organizational and ICT Strategies," "Managing ICT Risk," and "Technology Risk as a Socially Embedded Issue." This chapter does not provide a detailed, chronological account of the diverse and dynamic response to Y2K, which lasted more than five years, either within the Air Force or around the world. Instead, we present numerous response details here and within the discussion of results and lessons learned in the following three chapters.
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From page 14... ...
Included in this issue is a very useful piece on how to leverage capability created to address Y2K in the service of ongoing ICT management tasks (Isaacs 1999)
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From page 15... ...
It was not even clear who was using an ICT system and what they were using it for. Funding is only one of numerous complexities that greatly complicate management issues in the ICT world.
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A fuller view of the ICT infrastructure, however, includes even more diverse elements, such as ICT policies and best practices, relevant personnel and job categories, training and continuity plans, consequence management, security and information 16
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(AMC/SCA) While this statement is about one small element of the overall ICT infrastructure (personal computer [PC]
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From page 18... ...
Managers, too, need to distinguish between the reliability of their traditional infrastructure and that of the new information infrastructure. As an Air Force software manager put it, "We don't have any programs that don't have something wrong with them." During Y2K the lower reliability of information infrastructure as compared to traditional infrastructure led some people to see a need for new and different organizational tactics for developing, operating, and maintaining ICT.
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From page 19... ...
For the Air Force, these more specific ICT challenges stem largely from • the nature of its mission and functional objectives • heightened security and information assurance considerations • particular organizational makeup, establishment of policy, and decision-making practices • special personnel and training issues • large size and geographical dispersion 1.3.1. Mission and Functional Objectives The current Air Force vision for its national security mission is closely tied to successful management of its ICT assets.
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(Commander AFCIC, reported in USAF 2000c) 3 Therefore, the conduct of information warfare, both defensive and offensive, is a unique part of the Air Force ICT management challenge.
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From page 21... ...
These security issues are generally covered under the term critical infrastructure protection, or CIP (EOP 1998a)
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From page 22... ...
In a large and diverse organization such as the Air Force, there is a wide gap between the executive agency and the distributed, frontline operational management and use of ICT. In addition, the act's language about technology acquisition and architecture may not be interpreted as including responsibility for more human issues such as best ICT practices and alignment between ICT management and organizational strategy.
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From page 23... ...
The overall Air Force management strategy can be summed up as centralized management with decentralized execution. In practice this means that central guidance from Air Force headquarters is interpreted by each MAJCOM for its particular functional situation.
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From page 24... ...
Some of the most difficult of these challenges involve striking an appropriate balance between the differing functions and perspectives of the various people and the units involved in ICT management and practice. Balances must be struck, among others, between: • acquiring systems and linking networks • functional and cross-functional needs • central standardization and local flexibility • managing more traditional aspects of the infrastructure and managing newer ICT components • information sharing and information security As discussed in the lessons-learned sections, the Y2K experience brought all these tradeoffs to the forefront.
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From page 25... ...
. Turnover of ICT personnel comes not only from retirement but also from personnel cuts and the general practice of regularly shifting Air Force personnel to different bases (temporary duty, or TDY)
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Because they are geographically and politically separated, OCONUS ICT personnel face additional challenges to fielding and maintaining state-of-the-art systems. There can be an almost rural aspect to OCONUS bases.
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From page 27... ...
. Whatever the relationship between Y2K perceptions and realities, efforts to address Y2K challenged organizational ICT management in ways that it had never been challenged previously.
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From page 28... ...
. These elements might experience a Y2K problem whenever they needed to process a date that crossed the century barrier, whether that date was in the future -- as with projected cargo scheduling -- or in the past -- as with the power engineers in Montevideo.
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From page 29... ...
It was particularly difficult to craft a response that discriminated among the different types of Y2K problems, especially within the context of ICT management complexities and perceived insufficient time and resources. The following section provides a brief overview of various trends that played out over the course of the Y2K response period.
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From page 30... ...
In the first half of 1996, the Government Reform and Oversight Committee and the Science Committee began a joint review of the "Year 2000 Computer Problem," but by mid-1997 the focus was already shifting beyond the computer to a more traditional infrastructure. In her opening statement at a joint hearing on July 10, 1997, Chairwoman Constance Morella listed four specific concerns, the fourth being "that inadequate attention government-wide is being paid to other date-sensitive systems, such as the embedded computer chip problem." The media in particular was attracted to this issue, and soon these "other" systems became the major focus for many IT people, particularly those at the facilities level.
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From page 31... ...
. Instead, many computer professionals saw Y2K as being about operational data and how it was stored and used or about chips in cars and alarm systems or about legal and political issues.
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From page 32... ...
Instead of asking what technology they had and whether it was at risk, they asked what the critical activities of their organization were and what the role of information and communication technology was in those activities. Instead of placing a technical person in charge of Y2K, they placed an operating officer.
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From page 33... ...
1.4.2.4. From Technology to Political and Legal Issues For ICT professionals, Y2K first came to light as a technology issue concerning date representation.
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(AMC/SCA) In many cases, this trend led to the use of auditing agencies and other legally focused means of monitoring Y2K response efforts.
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From page 35... ...
Interestingly, that Y2K did not produce major sustained disruption to critical infrastructure actually makes it a more valuable source of long-term lessons for the operational and strategic management of complex ICT systems. Y2K studies evolved from a focus on fundamental flaws and cascading effects into an analysis of impact on overall strategic management of information and communication technology.
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